Complaining
by L. Emmist
Summary: On a holiday night, the Animorphs complain about everything that's right in their lives.


Disclaimer: None of it's mine. Does that cover it?  
  
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COMPLAINING  
  
by L. Emmist  
  
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{Of all the days,} Marco groaned. {Of all the days of the year, you have to pick this one!}  
  
{I didn't pick it, Marco,} I said. {The Yeerks did.}  
  
{Guys, get some altitude and hang left. There's a flock of crows over there we don't want to tangle with.}  
  
I pumped my small, sharp wings, wishing for a thermal. I did yet another silent count of the birds in the air with me. Northern harrier. Two ospreys. Bald eagle. Red-tailed hawk. We were all here.  
  
Whether that would still be the case in another four hours was anyone's guess.  
  
{I'm going to get in so much trouble with my dad for this,} Marco groaned.  
  
{Seriously,} Rachel agreed. {What am I supposed to tell my mom when she finds out I left Jordan and Sara alone with the TV and headed out by myself?}  
  
{I thought you were bribing their silence with ice cream,} Tobias said.  
  
{That's a temporary fix. It'll all come out in a couple days.}  
  
{Beyond the consequences of our sneaking out, think of what we're missing! I was seriously looking forward to hanging out with my friend Mr. Butterball tonight, you know? Um, no offense, Tobias.}  
  
{None taken, Marco.}  
  
{I'm sorry, but no way is Visser Three a better dinner companion than cranberry sauce,} Marco continued, warming to his theme. {In the first place, cranberry sauce definitely makes better conversation. "Yo, Visser! Pass the gravy, will you?" "ANDALITE!! DIE!"}  
  
In spite of myself, I snickered.  
  
{I was kind of hoping to catch some football this afternoon. Watch some several-hundred pound guys fling themselves at each other. Now you haul me up out of my nice comfortable La-Z-Boy and tell me to get myself killed? Jake, I don't know if this is a healthy relationship we have here. What about my needs?}  
  
{Yeah, isn't it so inconvenient fighting for the lives of every human on the Earth?} Cassie said suddenly.  
  
Her sarcasm startled all of us into silence. She had been emotional at the meeting earlier. And ever since Marco had begun his pre-battle whine, she had been unusually quiet. Now, none of us said anything. That shot of perspective had got the rest of us thinking.   
  
She had a point. I guess sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we're fighting for Earth. It wasn't just us we were about to bleed for.  
  
After a few moments, Cassie spoke again. Her voice was soft, almost apologetic. {It's such a pain in the neck that we have to leave our nice warm homes and put ourselves in the line of fire so that our parents can sleep tonight without an alien slug in their brain. So our sisters can.} She paused. {So our brothers will.} I think the last sentence was private thought speech.  
  
Out loud, she continued. {It's awful how we have to stand up like George Washington and be the secret hope of Earth.}  
  
{Horrible,} Rachel agreed. {I can't believe we have to come out here in the cold and fly all this way. What a pain to be a bird. The view from up here is such a drag. You can see way too much.}  
  
{I like the view,} Ax said in confusion.  
  
I smiled in my mind. {You two are right. Just think. In a little while, we're going to have to demorph all the way to human and morph to dolphin. So much work.}  
  
{And how much will that suck,} Tobias said. {Being a dolphin. I hate being a dolphin.}  
  
{Me too,} Rachel and Cassie chorused.  
  
{But, Tobias, you said you enjoyed --} Ax began, but we cut him off.  
  
{You know what's the worst, though?} Cassie said. {All the missions we've come through okay. How awful is that? It's terrible that we're still alive after all this time. It's such a pain we're still together. It's terrible that we freed the first Hork-Bajir. That we stopped the Yeerks from getting Pemalite technology. That the Iskoort are okay.}  
  
{Yeah, I can't believe that,} Rachel whined.  
  
{Neither can I,} Tobias said.  
  
{Neither can I,} I echoed. And I meant it.  
  
{Why is terrible?} Ax asked, sounding unnerved.  
  
{So keep it up, Marco,} Cassie said sternly. {Go ahead and keep complaining. I'm right there with you all the way. Life stinks.}  
  
He kept quiet for a second. {Okay, well, and then there's the fact that we don't even have a good plan!} he protested. {This whole mission is, as usual, insane! We don't know how many guards we're going up again. Shoot, we don't even know if he'll be there at all! I mean, come on, Erek could have been dead wrong. Let's face facts, he's a couple thousand years old, he's gotta be just a little senile, right? Plus, you listened to Rachel, and now this whole plan about crashing the front gate is just so.......}  
  
We were laughing as soon as he began. And we didn't stop laughing for a long time. Marco kept up the list of complaints until we lost concentration and started to drop in altitude. Ax kept protesting that he didn't understand.  
  
Cassie was right. We had plenty to complain about.  
  
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Happy Thanksgiving! -L. Emmist  
  
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Better disclaimer: Animorphs (specifically the Yeerks, the Hork-Bajir, Jake, Rachel, Marco, Tobias, Cassie, Ax, Tom, and Marco's dad) are all the property of Scholastic and K.A. Applegate. La-Z-Boy belongs to the people who make La-Z-Boy. I guess the Thanksgiving game belongs to the NFL. Birds and dolphins belong to God. Thanksgiving belongs to the United States of America, and the privilege of giving thanks belongs to you and me. Use it well. 


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